Duarte given food for thought
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Article summary
Portugal may have closed in on their first semi-final with victory against the Czech Republic but coach Orlando Duarte was uphappy with his team's start.
Article body
Orlando Duarte, Portugal coach
Our start gave us a lot to think about and we will have to correct several things. We did not play with our heads, we were driven by our emotions. Against Italy we managed to keep calm and focused all game, but not today. I was not expecting that bad start. We conceded a goal, we reacted badly and we started to run everywhere, and I did not like that. We have to play every two days, it's not easy to cope with so many games in so little time. Thankfully we managed to correct our mistakes in time and things were much better in the second half. Against Romania [who Portugal need only draw with on Wednesday] I hope we don't concede goals like that and I hope we will avoid the same mistakes.
Tomáš Neumann, Czech Republic coach
It was a bad game for us. When the score was 3-1, maybe we should have looked to contain the game more instead of carrying on attacking. Portugal were definitely better today. In the last period of the match we were very tired and they were superior to us. It's true, EURO has ended for us, we can't do any more.